A Legend of Zelda Modern Magical Boy Story That You Asked For
by Light Onthemayo
Summary: ... or... The Obligatory, Idiotic, High School Transforming Hero Alternate Universe with Very Loose Adherence to Reality and a Stupidly Long Title: The Series. Very loosely based on chapter 6 of Tales of the Island Symphony. He is a high schooler who doesn't wanna be a superhero. And she crash-landed into his life, and all hell broke loose. Better thank the fourth wall on this one.
1. Super Reluctant Hero

_A Legend of Zelda Modern Magical Boy Story That You Asked For_

… or…

 _The Obligatory, Idiotic, High School Transforming Hero Alternate Universe with Very Loose Adherence to Reality and a Stupidly Long Title: The Series_

…

Chapter 1: Super Reluctant Hero

…

Morning broke upon the small Japanese town whose name anime never mentions because it is never important enough to remember. So, for the sake of clarity, when this story _does_ mention it by name, that name will be Tokyo. This is completely arbitrary because it is the only Japanese place name I know (other than Japan and Kitachosen). As with any other day, this was a sign for the local population to wake up and begin their day. Some went to school, others went to work…

And then there were those who did not want to do anything, as was the case with the Moriyuki household.

Irleen Moriyuki had gotten up early that morning and, believing that her twin brother should share this morning with her, went into Link Moriyuki's room to wake him. She shook him as hard as she could. She punched his head as well. Link's response was to grab her arm and lead her out into the hallway under the premise of joining her for breakfast only to rush back into his room and lock the door. So she rushed into her parents' room to complain to their father. The next moment saw Alfonzo Moriyuki break down the bedroom door. Then he broke down the door to Link's bedroom and grabbed him by the ankles.

The situation then devolved into a tug-of-war with Alfonzo and Irleen each holding one of Link's ankles while Link clung to the footboard of his bed, which had been dragged to the doorway.

"No!" Link hollered. "I'm not going!"

"Boy, you gotta go to school!" Alfonzo shouted as he tugged.

"Oniiiiiichan!" Irleen cried out as she turned around and locked his foot under her arm.

"I'm _not_ doing it!" Link hollered. "I'm _not_ going to school today! I'm not doing this _stupid_ fanfic!"

"You've _got_ to," Alfonzo said. "Get out there, go to school, and become a superhero!"

"C'mon!" Irleen told him. "I want a magical big brother!"

"Are you two even _listening_ to yourselves!?" Link shouted at them. "I'm not being a part of _any_ transforming hero AU! Light _sucks_ at this kind of AU!"

["Hey!"]

"I don't care!" Alfonzo said as he braced a foot on the doorframe. "We're in this facfiction, so you might as well do it!"

"And I wanna be your sidekick!" Irleen added.

"Weren't you guys part of the _last_ one Light did?!" Link shouted. "It was clichéd, and Mei-chan beats the hell out of me! And you got turned into a _fairy_!"

"That doesn't mean Light will do it again!"

["You heard it from her, not me!"]

Leeta Moriyuki, bleary-eyed from waking up due to all of the noise, wandered down the hallway in her sky-blue nightgown until she stopped a few feet from the action. She watched as her husband, clad only in a pair of black boxers, and her daughter, still wearing her pink feather-print set of pajamas with her feathery green hair tossed about, both tugged on her son's green, turtle-print legs. Being only half asleep, she asked in a calm voice, "What's going on here?"

Irleen was the first to look up. Fright filled her eyes as she said, "Hi, Mom."

Alfonzo glanced over at her and had the same look in his eyes as he addressed her, "Hi, Mom."

Link, who could not even _see_ his mother, said from inside his room, "Hi, Mom."

"I've asked all _three_ of you not to make so much noise in the morning," Leeta told them in an even voice, rubbing a knuckle in one eye. "I work too late in the evening to be awake this early in the morning. Now, please, no more noise." She turned to go back to bed, and then she stopped and turned halfway around. "Oh, and Link, go to school."

"But _Moooom_!" Link whined. "I don't wanna be a superhero!"

"Nobody does, dear," she replied as she turned back toward her room. "It's the only way Light can maintain any sort of realism in this story."

["Hey!"]

Irleen turned back around and attempted to kick Link into submission. It was purely by accident that her foot nailed him in the crotch. Link's face twisted with pain, and Alfonzo grabbed him by the back of his pants and wrenched him free of the bed, causing it to slam against the floor. Alfonzo then grabbed the back of Link's pajama top. Link was too hurt to resist, so Alfonzo handled him like an over-packed suitcase all the way to the bathroom, where he chucked Link inside and slammed the door shut.

Link consigned himself to a quick shower and changed into a hunter-green pair of trousers and a white shirt. He left his tie draped on his shoulders while he gathered up his homework and stuffed it into his book bag. He had completely forgotten about it by the time he threw his blazer on, mostly because he had to search for the green pin that was supposed to be on his collar. He pondered the clichés that he might be dealing with today as he went downstairs, and then he remembered his tie and quickly tied it before one of the girls in his life did it for him. It was more of a self-defense mechanism; the last time Meilont had spotted his tie, she had gotten mad at him (for a completely different reason) and tried to strangle him with it. He felt that, as today was going to be a crazy day, he should probably minimize the chances of him getting hurt.

When he stepped into the kitchen, his father was pouring cereal into bowls. "C'mo—Dad," Link spoke up. "Cereal? _Really_?"

"Gotta get to school and become a superhero," Alfonzo replied.

"Do _I_ get a say in the matter!?"

"Nope," Irleen replied as she ducked under Link's outstretched left arm. Link grabbed one of the feathers on her head to pull her to a stop. "Ow ow _ow_!"

"At least _act_ like this is an issue," Link snapped at her.

"Let go!" Irleen snapped back. "You're gonna mess up my hair!"

"You're gonna turn into a fairy," Link warned.

"Dad!"

"Link, let go of your sister's head," Alfonzo said as he dug through the refrigerator. Link let go of her feather, and Irleen turned and stuck her tongue out at him. "Irleen, put the tongue back. Do either of you know what happened to the milk?"

Link shot Irleen an evil grin, causing her to realize that she— "Irleen had a height scare last week and drank all the milk."

["Let me finish the description, you jackass!"]

"Light!" Irleen whi—

["Wa—What're you shouting at _me_ for!?"]

"Rage against the author!" Link hollered in glee.

"All three of you, shut up!" Alfonzo boomed, slamming the refrigerator shut. "Leeta's still trying to sleep."

"Sorry," Link said with a pout.

"Sorry," Irleen said, actually appearing apologetic.

["Sorry."]

"Can't trust _any_ of you to let my wife sleep," Alfonzo growled as he popped the top off a glass bottle of prune juice. He poured it over both bowls of cereal. "Just like I can't trust _you two_ to wake up like any normal twins and make your _own_ breakfast in peace." He picked up the bowls of cereal and put them on the dining table. "Here. Eat."

Both Link and Irleen leaned forward as if looking into the bowls was like glancing over edge of a cliff. "Dad, you just poured prune juice over fruity flakes," Irleen complained.

"Would be _milk_ if someone didn't have a _height scare_ last week," Alfonzo replied as he reached into a drawer. He produced a pair of chopsticks and tossed them onto the table. "Eat, go to school, become a superhero…" He paused as he stared at Irleen. Then he pointed a finger at her. "… Don't get turned into a fairy."

"Thanks a lot!" Irleen hollered in irritation as he left the room. She stepped into the kitchen and retrieved a pair of spoons from a drawer. "Here," she said, offering one to Link once she was close enough to him.

Link looked at the spoon and then down at the bowl as if they both offended him. "Are you kidding? I'm not eating that."

"You might as well, Oniichan," she told him with a grin. "You'll need your strength if you become a superhero this morning."

"No, it'll happen after school," Link told her. "Also. I'm not touching cereal and _prune juice_. That's just plain _disgusting_."

"Oh, don't be such a wimp, Oniichan," Irleen said as she dropped the spoon into the bowl that sat closer to Link. Then she dunked her own spoon in the bowl next to her. "How bad could it be?" Link crossed his arms and watched as Irleen put the spoonful of cereal and prune juice into her mouth. She closed her lips around the spoon, and, almost immediately, a shiver surged throughout her body. She removed the spoon and, with her eyes screwed shut, began to chew. Link tried not to chuckle at the sight of his younger sister struggling not to spit the offensive food out. When she went to swallow, it looked like the cereal had caught in her throat. Once the cereal was down, Irleen opened her mouth and scraped her tongue across her front teeth. She caught the smug look on Link's face and sighed before saying, "Okay. Let's go to the convenience store."

"Best idea all morning," Link replied.

…

The convenience store sat almost halfway between the Moriyuki house and the school. It was run by a man named Talein Kimura, a large, muscular adult who looked like he would be more suitably employed as a dock worker or a lumberjack. He had only one daughter, Meilont, who was actually Link and Irleen's classmate. So after the Moriyuki twins had made their purchase of bread and milk, they left the store with Meilont joining in the walk.

Meilont had an inch above Link's height, although that may have mostly been her voluminous, red hair, brushed out and left draped from her shoulders and down her back. She carried a green-clad shinai over one shoulder. She wore the same uniform as Irleen: a white blouse with lime-green sleeves and sailor collar and a hunter-green skirt. But whereas Irleen liked to wear white socks with pink lace, Meilont wore black, knee-high socks.

Meilont was trailing Link and Irleen. So she spoke up as she tried to brush down a feather standing on the back of Irleen's head, "Irleen, wha' happened ta yer hair?"

"Oniichan grabbed it," Irleen pouted, giving Link a sidelong glare.

 _WAP!_

"Ow!" Link whined, covering his head lest he received another blow. "Why!? Just _why_!?"

"Yeh don' mess with a girl's hair," Meilont told him as she shouldered the shinai again. "Look a' this. Yeh ben' her feather."

"Big deal," Link said. "Just pull it out; it'll grow back."

"No!" Irleen cried as she placed her arms on her head to defend her hair. "They won't grow back!"

"Yes they will!" Link argued. _WAP!_ "Yeow!"

"She's no' pullin' it ou'," Meilont said.

"Go walk on Irleen's _other_ side!" Link snapped, pointing across Irleen's face.

"Don' be so bossy," Meilont complained as she moved toward where Link was pointing. Irleen became annoyed with where his arm was and slapped it out of her way. Meilont huffed and asked, "Wha's _wrong_ with yeh t'day?"

"He's just mad that he's gonna get turned into a superhero today," Irleen said.

"No I'm not," Link immediately told her.

"Yeh mean like tha' _other_ AU?" Meilont asked, putting a smile on as she leaned forward to glance at Link. "Do _I_ ge' ta know abou' it, too?"

"No one's gonna need to know _anything_ because it's not gonna _happen_ ," Link declared, crossing his arms and closing his eyes like it was a final decision. "So you two better get over it."

"Yeah, looks like you're in on the secret, too," Irleen answered.

Link put on an annoyed face and snapped, "Didn't you two _hear_ me!? It's _not happening_!"

"Righ'," Meilont said with an evil grin on her face. "And I suppose it's bes' fer Light's health tha' this chapter keeps goin', huh?"

"Probably not," Irleen said as she enjoyed the stunned look frozen on her brother's face.

["Meh. She's probably right about that."]

"Okay, okay, look," Link told the girls. "If we're talking about Light, we're talking about clichés. Light isn't _that_ smart a writer."

["That's right, Link. Just lay all the insults on the writer. See if I care."]

"You don't scare me, Light," Link said to the air in front of him. He clenched his empty hand and raised it into the air. "Gimme your best shot!"

["CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!"]

"This is gonna get messy, isn't it?" Irleen asked Meilont.

"Yes, bu' no one can say it'll be _borin'_ ," Meilont responded with a soft grin.

…

They arrived at school and changed into their school shoes. Then an argument broke out when Link discovered that Meilont was in the same class, contradicting the previous fanfic. However, he calmed down once he took his seat, the desk in the middle. Having arrived early, Link kicked back in his seat and took a quick nap while Meilont and Irleen chatted somewhere at the back of the room.

Link's best friend Line Kazegawa entered just a few minutes before the bell, leaving he and Link to talk about Line's latest date. Which went horribly and helped explained the claw marks on his cheek. Link was more willing to shrug it off, not really interested in hearing how Line failed yet again when he had a job to prevent himself from becoming a superhero today.

The bell rang, and the class representative called out "Stand!" just as their homeroom teacher, Leynne Furutori, entered. He waited for the class to finish their greeting before taking attendance in his head.

"Right," Leynne said as he closed the class register. "A couple of things this mohning. Fihst, theh's been a minoh incident with the school's plumbing. Theh will be wohkmen on the campus attending to the situation, so the reah school yahd is off-limits. Physical education has been changed to an indooh couhse foh the time being. And those who do not wish to contract any debilitating _illnesses_ ah advised to drink only packaged drinks from the vending machines and use none of the school's wateh fountains." A hand went up at the front of the room. "Yes, Yomibito?"

"What about the lavatories?" Cale Yomibito asked. "Ah _they_ still in operation?"

"The school is keeping the wateh running foh that exact reason," Leynne said. "Howeveh, the showehs ah not to be used. And you would be wise to use _soap_ when washing youh hands. I am told that the plumbing problem should be sohted out by the beginning of next week.

"Second, the principal asked us to infohm the students of a situation we ah having in the new annex. It seems that students ah being attacked and stripped of theih clothes in the vicinity of the music room. If any—"

 _Thunk!_ Link, as well as a few other students, looked to the right of the room near the windows. One row behind Link, Line was sitting straight up with a large smile on his face. At the same time, Line was sweating, and he even had a tear falling down one eye. Link thought he was sitting uncomfortably close to his desk.

"Kazegawa, you indeed have had a hahd time with pubehty lately," Leynne remarked in a flat voice, causing a few of the students to chuckle to themselves. "You might want to reign in youh hohmones befoh you put a hole through the bottom of youh desk."

"Trying, Sensei," Line tried to reply through a strained voice, wincing in pain.

"If anyone has seen the pehpetratoh oh knows anything, please infohm the staff so that we may end this situation. Othehwise, the school is looking at sexual harassment lawsuits." Link heard someone hissing and glanced at the back corner. Irleen was pointing at him, mouthing "superhero" as subtly as possible. "Moriyuki, Ihleen," Leynne then said, clicking his papers hard against the podium to emphasize her name. Irleen snapped into a straight posture. "You have just volunteehed to write up and solve the fihst problem from the homewohk on the blackboahd while the class representative collects them."

"Aaaw…" Irleen moaned as she stood up.

After Link handed his notebook forward and passed along the notebooks from the classmates sitting behind him, he took out another notebook and started writing in it.

—Well, that's two traps down, Light. All I have to do is avoid the annex and the worksite.

—Score; Link: 2, Light: DICK.

For emphasis, Link began drawing a phallus within the word. It earned him a swat on the head as Irleen walked by on her way back to her seat.

"Ihleen!"

"Aaaw…"

…

Math did not hold much interest for Link, causing him to tune Leynne out. History was equally as boring, allowing Link to fall asleep in class despite the fact that the author planned to get him. Science class was bookwork only due to Sello Shiniyoi being out with a broken arm after a lab accident two weeks ago. The only reason this annoyed Link was because he lost the betting pool for thinking he would have recovered that fast. His mood lightened after Line, who had been gloating over the fact that he was still in the running, took a book to the back of the head when Meilont became fed up with him.

Link decided to go to the cafeteria alone for lunch. This did not prevent Meilont and Irleen from following him at all. From the lunch line to the table at the far end of the cafeteria where he was sure chaos would not come flying through the outer wall, he could sense the two girls following him. So when he finally sat down and the two took seats across from him, he snapped.

"WHAT!?"

"There's a sign on your back," Irleen said, pointing past Link.

Link reached over his shoulder and found that someone had taped a sheet of paper to his back. He ripped it off and looked at it.

—Linkman.

Link recognized the handwriting and glared at Meilont as he balled the sign. "When'd you come up with _that_?" he asked, throwing it over his shoulder.

None of the trio noticed someone suddenly swoop by to steal the paper out of the air.

"Durin' history," Meilont answered.

"You need a new hero name," Irleen told him. "That last story used 'Captain Knight', and that was just too _lame_."

["I took, what, _two_ seconds to come up with that! Gimme a break!"]

"Shut up, Light," Link told the ceiling. Then he pointed a set of unbroken chopsticks at Irleen. "You're not gonna get to decide that."

"Fine, _I_ will," Meilont said with a smug grin on her face.

" _No one_ is," Link corrected her. In his annoyance, his chopsticks snapped the wrong way, producing one that was half the length of the other. "Crap…"

"Ooh, I have one, I have one!" Irleen volunteered. "'The Green Buccaneer'."

"Stop it," Link told her.

"I don' know I like the color," Meilont said. "Maybeeeee… 'The Emerald Privateer'."

"Am I a captain, or a pirate?" Link asked in a flat tone.

"'The Emerald Seaman'?" Meilont suggested.

"No!" Link and Irleen snapped at the same time.

"That sounds like some gross medical condition!" Irleen told her.

Link gave her a confused look. "In what language?" he asked.

["Everyone's a critic…"]

"It _has_ ta be somethin' green," Meilont said.

"Or emerald," Irleen said. "I like the way 'emerald' sounds."

"Seriously," Link spoke up. "Stop."

"'Cap'n Emerald'?" Meilont said.

Irleen shook her head, giving Link enough distraction to snatch the untouched pair of chopsticks on her tray. "No, it makes him sound like a pimp. How about… 'The Emerald Skipper'."

"Ooh, I like where tha's goin'," Meilont told her with an excited tone. "It still needs a bi' more, though."

"'Theeeeee'… c'mon, 'The Emerald'…" Irleen droned, trying to prompt Meilont with an inviting hand.

"'The Emeralllllld…'," Meilont tried. Then she asked, "Didn' Link have a _title_ in the original story?" Link snapped his stolen chopsticks apart after hearing her question, still managing to break them incorrectly but with a length that he could use.

"Yeah," Irleen said. "The 'Hero of Journeys'."

"Soooooo…" Meilont said, "'The Emerald… Master of Journeys'?"

"Ooh, 'Master Emerald, the Journeying Swordsman'," Irleen suggested.

"Eeh, I like the 'Master Emerald' par', but I think it's a li'l… strange. How 'bout 'Master Emerald, Courageous Journeyman'?"

"You two are wasting your time," Link said before putting a helping of udon between his lips.

"Oh, yeah?" Irleen asked, giving him a playful grin. "We're gonna tell it to Zelda the _minute_ she shows up."

Link had to slurp his noodles faster before responding, causing soup to spatter his lips. "You're gonna be disappointed," he told them. He paused to wipe his mouth. "First off, Light's already told me which places would be great for catching me on school grounds, and I'm gonna avoid them both. Second, just so I don't have to worry about getting caught after school, I'm gonna skip the kendo club and go _straight_ home. I'll be mingling with other students, so Light can't catch me alone. Then, once I'm home, Light'll never be able to put together a convincing plot that won't have the readers calling it contrived, convoluted, and stupid. Nothing exciting _ever_ happens at home!"

"Yeah, _clearly_ , you and I remember this morning differently," Irleen said.

Link paused taking another bite and stabbed a finger on the table. "I've got Light _here_ and _now_. You might as well face it: I'll be your simple, plain, ordinary, _boring_ older brother for however much longer this stupid fanfiction has to last. Light has _no_ plausible way to catch me."

"Ligh's gonna make yeh move, Link," Meilont warned him while Irleen started looking around her tray for her chopsticks. "Yeh ain' escapin' this."

"Light can give me powers _now_ , and I _guarantee_ you that every reader will change websites _this very moment_ ," Link bragged.

…

["And, suddenly, Link gained special powers and became the Emerald Marauder, Swashbuckler of Time. Because, apparently, I am _that_ stupid. Go ahead, go to a different webpage. I'll wait before you decide to see where I am _actually_ going with this. I've got nothing better to do.

["…

["…

["…

["… Welcome back. Oh, you never left? What a shocker. Let's get back to the reason why _I_ 'm the writer, and Link's the _character_."]

…

Link could barely remember what happened in his literature class, having propped up his book so that he could nap behind it. Art class passed with Link painting a banner over the pineapple that the teacher was using as the subject. The teacher questioned him about why there was a banner saying "Light sucks" before telling him to throw the canvas out. Link was not sad about it; the pineapple he had drawn looked more like a roll of toilet paper anyway. He could not get away from reading a passage in history class, and it annoyed him further that he could not find a way to turn it into another slight against the author. P.E. consisted of volleyball practice, during which Meilont spiked the ball into Line's face for "accidentally" grabbing her ass outside of the locker room. He later told Link that it had been an honest accident; he had been aiming for Irleen. This only resulted in Link pulling Line's shirt over his head and shoving him into his gym locker.

Once the final school bell rang, Link was at the shoe lockers pulling out his sneakers before anyone else had even arrived. Of course, once he realized that he was alone, he waited until the majority of the student body was leaving the school before he mingled in with the crowd. Meilont could not stop him from this; she would be too busy hustling to the Kendo Club's building. Irleen would be equally as distracted with the Library Club. And Line would be running late since Link had shoved him into his gym locker. So it all meant that Link would be walking home alone.

In the rain.

About halfway home, the overhead clouds gathered into a thick mass of gray and began raining on top of Link. Not that Link cared after a while. He was dancing along the sidewalk, attracting confusion from those who dared glance in his direction before running to escape the rain. He developed a strange skip, step, step, slide, and turn pattern which probably did more to advance him down the street than impress anyone. In fact, it actually managed to annoy someone.

"Ragh!"

Link only had a split second to respond to the girlish growl of anguish.

 _Whap!_ Then the book hit his head.

Link cried out just before falling on his face. His vision swam for a moment as he lay flat on the ground trying to recover from the blow to the head. Then he pushed up and rose to his knees. He spun to snap at his attacker over his shoulder, "What the hell is _wrong_ with you!?"

"You're an insensitive jerk, and I _hate_ you!" Irleen shouted back.

Link jumped to his feet so that he was at least eye-level with her. "Why you little b—"

Then he froze out of fear and realization. He was shouting at _Irleen_. She should not have even been _there_ with him! "What are you _doing_ here!?" Link cried out in panic.

"I wanted you to know how _mad_ I was at you!" Irleen replied, throwing her sopping wet book bag at his feet.

 _Bam._ The ground shook, although the sound seemed to have come from further down the road. Irleen became stupefied and peered around Link to locate the source.

Link, however, looked down at the ground and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Touché, Light," he groaned. "Tou-effing-ché." Then he deigned to turn around.

The rain around them, now much heavier, cut visibility beyond the next three blocks. Irleen stepped up next to Link, squinting along with her brother to find the source of the sound from before. The best they saw was a flash of white light somewhere in the cloud before them.

 _Ffff-WHOOOM! BAGGGGGH!_ Whatever it had been, it flew past the twins so fast that they took a second too long to react. If it had been aimed at either of them, they would have surely been bashed into the ground hard. They both flinched and spun around. Their eyes met a gash in the road a meter wide, slabs of asphalt shoved aside to expose a newly made furrow in the soft earth below. The demolition occurred off to Link's right, cluing Link in on how lucky he was to have _not_ been standing there.

"What was that!?" Irleen cried out.

Link thought he had caught a glimpse of the object. He did not respond, instead deciding to slowly advance toward the gash. Irleen followed, glancing back toward where the sound had come from. Once they found the object, still smoking in the base of the crater, Link let out an exhausted sigh.

A girl with long, blo—

"We already know it's Zelda, Light," Link said as he placed a hand over his eyes.

["Is it, Link? Is it?"]

"No, it's definitely Zelda," Link said.

"Boy, you're taking the fun out of this…" Irleen groaned.

["Fine."]

An unconscious Zelda lay in the crater, her pink tunic torn and sullied with dirt and blood. From under her long, blond hair came a couple lines of crimson. If she had been wearing a hat at any time, it was gone. Link did not even see a weapon with her.

Irleen jumped into the crater while Link turned to look back down the street. "So were you trying to catch me with the Dulcinea Effect or what, Light?" Link asked.

"Oniichan, she's barely breathing," Irleen called up to Link.

"Yeah, but if we take her home, we'll just attract whatever beat the hell out of her," Link said as he dug into his pocket for his cell phone. He turned to look over the crater as he dialed. "I'll get an ambulance."

 _Bam. Bam bam._

Both Link and Irleen turned to look back down the street. Three pairs of glowing blue lights stared back out of the mist.

"Uh… Oniichan?" Irleen spoke up. "I-I don't think they left."

"Yeah," Link replied. "Yeah, I picked up on that." He placed the cell phone next to his ear. "Police it is."

::"We are sorry, but your cell phone is currently out of range. We are—"::

Link looked at his screen to see that the reception indicator in the top corner was empty. He tightened his grip on the phone. Then he threw it at the ground while hollering, "Screw you, Light!"

"Oniichan!" Irleen whined. "You're the only one who had a cell phone!"

Link glanced over his shoulder at her. "Yeah, maybe we should talk to Mom and Dad about that," he said in a defeated tone.

Footsteps sounded, and the twins watched as the lights emerged from the mist around them. Three Stalarmors, each easily towering over Link, looked over the area as if no one else was there. The one standing in the middle sported a large spike standing from the top of its head and layers of chain replacing most of its missing muscle mass. On the left stood a Stalarmor riddled with bullet holes to the point that its cuirass was shreds hanging from its ribs. That probably made it more dangerous; the sharp edges of the bullet holes protruded from the front of the armor, especially on the gauntlets. The final Stalarmor did not wear armor. Instead, thick slats of black iron had been hammered around and bolted to its steel-plated skeleton. This last one had a sword in its hands while the other two held battleaxes.

Link decided he needed the sword. "Irleen, is she wearing a bracelet?" he asked as he backed toward the crater.

Irleen picked up Zelda's left hand to find a thick, gold band with a large ruby. "Yeah?"

"Take it off and throw it to me," Link told her. He used a hand to hurry her. "C'mon."

"Are you serious?" Irleen asked as she tried to pull the bracelet apart.

"You wanna pick her up and run away?" Link asked. "We'd never make it. Now _c'mon_."

The bracelet snapped open. Irleen carefully removed it and lofted it up to Link. His catch was clumsy, nearly spilling him into the crater, but he recovered and slipped the bracelet onto his own wrist.

"What are you gonna do?" Irleen asked as Link closed the bracelet.

Link then lifted a slab of asphalt about the size of his head out of the crater. "Uh… not sure yet. Bear with me."

"Oh, boy…"

Link turned to see that the two Stalarmors with battleaxes were moving along the opposite side of the crater while the Stalarmor with the sword approached him, prepared to swing if necessary. He twisted to one side with his hand on the edge of the asphalt slab. Naturally, he hesitated because he did not have the same experience that he had gained fighting creatures in _Sky Lines_.

"Noooo," Link spoke up. "I'm hesitating because this is a really _stupid_ idea." The Stalarmor approaching him paused and tilted its head in confusion, wondering if Link was talking to it.

Link decided to take advantage of this by throwing the slab of asphalt like a flying disk. The addition of the Sorian Bracelet not only allowed him to do this with ease, he was also able to impart enough force into the slab to spin it, skip it off the undisturbed surface of road, and sweep away the Stalarmor's left shin with a direct hit. The Stalarmor's eyes grew to fill its sockets before it face-planted the road.

Link then dashed up to the Stalarmor and grabbed its sword off the ground. Although the sword was heavier than a shinai, Link had no trouble lifting it up with both hands and then using a golf-like swing to send the Stalarmor's head flying. Its friends, one of them attempting to cross the gash in the road, paused to watch the head disappear into the mist and smash hard into what was surely someone's house. Link then had to back up as the Stalarmor reached out to grab him.

It turned out to be a good idea since the Stalarmor crossing to reach him brought its axe down where his foot would have been. Link raised the sword and delivered a vertical strike down on its head. Or at least, he _tried_. The spike in the middle of its head caused his sword to deflect and strike the chains on its shoulder. The Stalarmor twisted in an attempt to grab the blade, but Link already withdrew.

"Mask!" he declared out of habit. In the next instant, the Stalarmor felt the world wheel around itself after Link's horizontal blow caught its cheek bone, sending its whole head into a dizzying spin. It released its axe in order to grab its head, but by the time it stopped its panoramic view of the street, it was so disoriented that it simply fell aside.

Link turned his attention to the Stalarmor still standing on the other side of the gash. He was glad he did because, if he had not ducked in the next split-second, he would have had his skull split open by the battleaxe the Stalarmor had thrown. The Stalarmor then drew a stiletto from behind its back and advanced toward Link. Link waited until it set foot in the gash. Then he wheeled around to grab the battleaxe embedded in the residential wall behind him. He pulled it free with his right hand and quickly spun again. He heaved it over his head and threw. And missed. Because the battleaxe was much larger than the sword, Link's throw was awkward, and the axe sailed past the Stalarmor's left shoulder.

"Oniichan!" Irleen whined. "You _missed_!"

"I didn't throw _axes_ in the other story!" Link hollered back.

The Stalarmor glanced between Link and Irleen for a moment. Then it turned toward Irleen.

"Uh oh," Link uttered as he watched the Stalarmor wind up to throw its dagger. He jumped into the gash and put a foot on the opposite edge to jump out again, sword held to the outside so that he could deliver a diagonal strike to the Stalarmor's head once he was in range.

He did not see the Stalarmor change its hold on the dagger.

Once Link was up out of the gash again, the Stalarmor twisted as fast as possible. Its hand was open, and its palm, covered in jagged metal, thrust hard into Link's chest. Link felt his breath leave his lungs, and he stumbled backward a step. The Stalarmor made a point of sliding its hand from Link's chest as noisily as possible. Link had just enough clarity of mind to realize that its hand should not have been making that noise. He could hear Irleen screaming something, but he lacked any sort of comprehension as he looked down at his chest.

His heart had been pierced by the stiletto. The Stalarmor had been holding it between its fingers when it delivered the slap to his chest.

Blood began to stain the front of his uniform jacket. The sword clattered loudly against the ground. Irleen's cries became hysterical. Link felt a slight jerk as the Stalarmor pulled the stiletto out. The whole scene around him blended to grey as he began falling backward.

…

In the next instant, everything was white. Link knew that he was lying on his back, but the surface underneath him was solid and uniform. If it was supposed to be the road, then someone had forgotten to put the skin-cutting gravel in the mixture.

A mass of gold appeared in his vision. He heard a girl's voice say, "Well. Here's another one. How do you feel, Link?"

Link found that his mouth could move, so he said, "Surprisingly good for being stabbed to death." He sighed and asked, "Heroic sacrifice then, Light."

["More like 'stupid sacrifice'."]

Link frowned. "How come?"

"Link," the girl's voice said, "a Stalarmor couldn't hit you with a thrown _axe_. What made you think it could hit Irleen with a thrown _dagger_?"

["And you dying just leaves the both of them vulnerable. Nice job."]

Link stared in shock for a moment. Then he said, "You couldn't write a good heroic sacrifice if your underwear was on fire, and nobody likes your stories, Light."

["Sticks and stones."]

The girl giggled. "Now, now. Link? Light? We still have a story to finish. This is only the first chapter. I believe it is this point where Link is offered the choice to finish dying or go back as a superhero."

"Kill me now," Link told her immediately.

["Not so fast."]

"What?" Link asked.

"Weeeeeeell…" the girl said, her tone a little playful.

Link's neck jerked as he shouted, "I thought I had a _choice_ here!"

"Not really," she told him.

"Why not!?"

"The girl that you and Irleen are protecting is still unconscious and vulnerable. With those Stalarmors around, I cannot exactly allow you to simply pass from this life. I need you to save her."

"You know," Link said, "if you _don't_ bring me back to life, we don't have to do this stupid fanfiction."

"I am well aware of this," she told him. "However, what would be the point in discontinuing this fanfiction and negate the hard work Light was trying to put into it?"

"It would _teach_ Light not to write crap like this."

["Crap like this maintains your existence."]

"That's what the rest of the series is for," Link said.

"Yes, but there needs to be a bit of downtime, too," the girl's voice said.

Link sighed. "Light, you can stop referring to her without a name. I already know it's Zelda talking to me through her unconsciousness."

The girl's voice giggled. "Sorry, Link. Not this time."

Link's face turned blank. "'Not this time' what?"

"Link Moriyuki, known in another life as Captain Link of the _Island Symphony_ , I hereby grant you the power hidden within your lineage and bestow upon you the Courageous Heart to be your partner in this life. Take it and serve justice."

"Wait a minute!" Link cried out as the white around him began to fade. "What do you mean 'not this time'!?"

…

Irleen Moriyuki was in total shock. She could not send strength to her legs. Her mind was a complete blank. She had just watched her brother die from a stiletto to the heart. Her face paled as the Stalarmor descended into the gash and slowly advanced toward her. She would not run, and the Stalarmor knew it. It wanted to savor the moment, feeding off her fear. It could feel the flood of her fright down to the life gem hidden by its faulds at the top of its left femur. It stopped just in front of Irleen, looming over her to ensure maximum terror.

"GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!"

This only made it a little harder to move. But the Stalarmor still went flying through the air over Irleen's head as the force of impact from behind caused its skeleton to fall apart. Irleen took a moment to recognize Link. Only he was completely different.

Link wore a green tunic and brown trousers over a lime-green bodysuit. One hand held a broadsword which had a crossguard shaped like part of a cogwheel with the ends curved toward the blade. His opposite arm supported a heater shield bearing a gold triangle above an arc emitting silver rays directed toward the bottom half of the shield, all over a field of blue and edged with slats of bare steel. His boots were fresh leather with blue wing-shaped patches on the ankles. Irleen stared up in amazement at her resurrected brother.

His glare fell on her, and he told her, "Don't. Say. A word."

Irleen responded with a flat look and told him, "My hero…"

Link jumped over the girls' heads and landed on the undisturbed asphalt behind them. The Stalarmor was just reassembling itself when it turned to look back at him. So Link tapped the edge of his shield with the sword's blade. _Tang tang!_ "Let's go, lead head!" he called to it.

The Stalarmor charged at Link. Link braced himself behind the shield, the sword held low behind him where the Stalarmor could not see. The Stalarmor prepared to throw a haymaker with its left, that gauntlet sporting more jagged armor between the pair. Just as the Stalarmor was ready to swing, Link quickly closed the distance between them and swung his sword diagonally upward. The blade bounced past what was left of the Stalarmor's breastplate and knocked one of its vertebrae out of place. The Stalarmor's punch missed Link's head by inches as its torso toppled over. This combined with the fact that the Stalarmor was still running caused the Stalarmor's legs to kick part of its upper half through the air. Link caught sight of a glow on the back of the Stalarmor's pelvis and leaned aside to check on the rest of the Stalarmor while carefully replacing his sword. The kick had sent the Stalarmor's head back into the gash, where the chain-wearing Stalarmor was slowly rising. Link had to act fast, so he stepped forward to the pair of legs still standing nearby and drew the pin hammer tucked into the front of one belt. He lifted the fauld out of the way and struck the gem with as best a blow as he could manage with the awkward angle. The life gem cracked, and the legs collapsed to the ground.

The chain Stalarmor picked up its axe and ran for the girls. Link replaced the hammer and dashed for the Stalarmor. He took a flying leap from the top of the mangled road. The Stalarmor looked up just in time for Link to position his legs forward. Then Link's entire body ripped the Stalarmor's head off. Link tried to land on his feet, but his momentum threw him forward. He tossed the Stalarmor's head further down the road so that he could use his arms to save himself as he fell face-first onto the road. He heard a crash and looked over his shoulder to see that the Stalarmor had fallen to the ground again.

Link then stood up. He looked at the head to see that the spike on top had been embedded in the softer layer under the road. The body clanked around as it tried to recover. So Link slid past the body and approached Irleen and Zelda.

"She changed back," Irleen told him as his eyes wandered Zelda. She had changed into a simple, white t-shirt and a plaid skirt. Around her right wrist was a thin, gold bracelet with a pink, triangular button. Link noticed that she did not have any shoes on, only socks. Irleen tried to gently slap her face. "C'mon, wake up."

"Don't worry about that now," Link said as he stepped to Zelda's side. He carefully slipped his arms under her shoulders and thighs so he could pick her up. She was light, but Link attributed that to the Sorian Bracelet he wore. "Let's get her to our house; we'll call an ambulance from there."

"Wait, what about the Stalarmors?" Irleen asked as she followed Link out of the crater.

"They can get their own ambulance." Link paused and glanced around for a moment. "Stupid fog."

"Home's the other way," Irleen pointed out.

"I _know_ ," Link told her. "We're going _around_ the homicidal skeletons. Light, whenever you're ready, we can use a chapter break."

["Yeah, whatever."]


	2. Love, Justice, and Cookies

Chapter 2: Love, Justice, and Cookies

…

Once the fog lifted to reveal the early evening, Irleen kept spinning around to check whether the Stalarmors were following them. They never came into sight nor did she hear them, leaving their path clear all the way home. By the time they crossed the threshold, Link's outfit had changed back into his skewered and bloodied uniform jacket and stained slacks. He told Irleen to get changed while he watched over Zelda and dialed for an ambulance. Even though Zelda only appeared bruised and scraped, she was still unconscious and barely seemed to be breathing as she lay on the couch in the living room. The emergency operator gave him a few instructions to make sure she was not in immediate danger. The operator hung up, and Irleen came down the stairs a few minutes later. Link quickly changed out of his blood-soaked clothes and into a white t-shirt and blue jeans. He was just coming down the stairs when the paramedics knocked on the door. He brought them to Zelda and spun a story about finding her outside with as few details as he could manage, keeping the story technically true but neglecting the fact that she had been attacked by six-foot skeletons coated in steel.

Link watched from the door as the last paramedic shut the doors to the back of the ambulance. And he watched as the paramedic loaded up. And he watched… the ambulance not leave the house. He frowned as he glanced over the back end, wondering why they had not left yet. Then he became bored and closed the door.

Irleen was relaxing on the chair in the living room, a chocolate chip cookie held between her lips. She had changed to a pale-green tank top that let her dirty-white arm feathers breathe and a pair of khaki shorts that reached down to the middle of her thigh. With her attention aimed up at the ceiling, she caught just the top of Link's head as he stepped up behind the chair. "Hhe hone?" she asked.

"What?" Link replied.

Irleen took a bite out of the cookie so she could pull it away from her lips. "Is she gone?" she repeated.

"Yeah." Link pointed and asked, "Where'd you find the cookie?"

Irleen swallowed and held up a slip of paper. "One of our reviewers gave them to us." Link took the slip of paper to read it. "She left them as a bribe to get you to play hero."

Link dropped his hands so that they slapped against his thighs. "I'm _not_ gonna play hero," he told her. "I'm not even gonna _pretend_ to play hero. When Zelda gets out of the hospital, she can go on about her business and just forget about me."

"Are you still wearing the bracelet?" Irleen asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Oh, yeah, like _that_ means much," Link told her. He held his hands over her face and tried to pull the thin band of gold from his wrist. He just about squeezed it past his thumb, but a net of lightning-blue threads flashed into existence to grab his wrist. The bracelet slipped his grip and bounced back in place. "She's got this stupid thing _locked_ ; I can't get it off."

She offered him her cookie over the back of the chair. "Cookie?"

"No," he told her as he strode over to the kitchen area.

"C'mon, Link," Irleen said, adjusting her position so that she could sit a little higher and watch him walk to the refrigerator. "How bad could it be to be a super hero?"

"Bad," Link said. He opened the refrigerator and looked through the shelves for a moment. "I won't do it for love, justice, or all the cookies in the world."

"Too bad," Irleen told him. "They taste pretty gooo~ood."

Link selected a plastic bottle of green tea and slammed the refrigerator shut. "I spent two months in a different life being chased down by different things that wanted to kill me for no reason," he told her. "Why, when I can actually have some time to myself to _relax_ , would I wanna pick up whatever Zelda and Light are throwing at me?"

"It's not like you can actually _lose_."

Link gave her a hard look and slammed the bottle onto the countertop next to him. "I _can't_ lose?" he asked as he grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt. He pulled up to show her his chest. "Does _this_ look like a win to you?"

Irleen gave his bare chest a flat look. "Looks more like a _doll_ , really. Is this supposed to prove something?"

Link used one hand to feel his chest. Then he tucked the shirt under his chin so he could look down. "No scar?"

"Nope," Irleen replied with a gleeful look on her face.

Link gave a frustrated sigh and let his shirt fall. "Right, heroes don't scar…" He muttered to himself. "Okay, try _this_ one, smart-ass. I _died_."

"You're still _standing_ here, aren't you?"

" _I. Died._ "

Irleen sighed. "You're just being a big _baby_ , Oniichan. Look, it's obvious that _both_ Light and Zelda aren't gonna let you be a slacker and ignore this. You might as well just go with the program. Now what would a hero be doing after rescuing another hero?"

Link snapped open the cap to his bottle of tea. "Probably something better than talking to his little sister."

 _Kon kon kon._ The siblings gave each other a confused look before turning to glance through the doorway toward the front entrance. Irleen pushed herself up and asked, "Who could _that_ be?"

Link sighed, just moments away from taking a drink, and set the tea bottle down. "I'll go check," he groaned.

"Right," Irleen said as she stood up. As Link walked out of the kitchen/living room, she pattered over to the dining table. "I'm gonna have another cookie."

"You're gonna get fat off those," Link called just before stepping into the hallway. He reached the entryway and pulled the door open.

Meilont stood on the other side. She had her head bowed so that her bangs covered her eyes. She had changed into a yellow t-shirt with a small, red-dyed, denim jacket over it and a pleated skirt which transitioned from orange at the waist to white along the hem. Link heard leather grinding and looked down to see that she was carrying a shinai, bare, in her right hand. Incidentally, this was also her sword-hand.

Link sighed. "I'm guessing you're mad at me." Meilont nodded. "Skipping kendo club?" Meilont nodded again and sniffed. "Gonna hit me?"

Meilont looked up at him, and Link could see the fury burning in her eyes. She raised the shinai above her head. Normally, Link would have reacted to defend himself. This time he did not need to.

 _Wap!_ Link gave her a smug grin. Meilont looked up to see that the shinai, as she had brought it down for a vertical strike, had hit the wall above the door and had its end cap halted by the frame.

"Too bad about that doorframe, huh?" Link asked her as he leaned out of the doorway.

Meilont's scowl turned comical as she bared her teeth at him. "RRRRRRRAAAAGH!" she roared as she forced the shinai to descend on Link's head.

The end cap on the shinai popped off. The resulting force— _WHAP!_ —cracked down hard on Link's head before he could react. Link's vision darkened for a moment. Once he was coming back to awareness, he found that his chin was pressed onto the front step. His jaw hurt, and he tilted his head to one side to see if Meilont was still around. What he caught sight of was a flash of pale red under her skirt.

Meilont stepped aside. And Link caught the horrified look in her eyes as she glanced down at his reddening face. Once Link saw her expression change back to outrage, he screwed his eyes shut in anticipation.

"WHY YA—!"

 _WHAMPK!_

…

Link came to a few minutes later and found himself stretched out on the living room couch. Irleen lay on the floor in front of the TV, watching some variety show Link could not readily identify through the lingering effects of a Meilont-style concussion. Meilont was watching the show from the chair near Link's feet, a pair of cookies sitting on her lap.

He groaned to let the girls know that he was awake. "What time is it?" he asked.

"About seven-thirty," Irleen said. "Time seems to be taking a while in this fanfic."

"Ligh' seems inten' on gettin' action in on this day," Meilont commented.

Link felt around his jaw. "What happened to me?" he asked. "My chin feels like it got kicked."

"Yer chin broke the fron' step when I hi' yeh," Meilont told him in a casual tone before taking a bite of cookie.

"Dad's gonna be pissed," Irleen chimed in.

"Why do you gotta break things using my _head_?" Link asked.

"Oh, please," Meilont said, finally deigning to look at him. She held up three fingers and said, "Two tables an' a wall. No more."

Irleen rolled to give Meilont a confused look. "Who's wall?" she asked.

"Tha' day yeh were ou' sick," Meilont answered. "He told me tha' yeh'd died an' teased me 'cuz I believed it. I go' so mad, I knocked him through the wall inna the hallway."

"Every time you're around, I get hurt," Link groaned.

"Oh, tha's jus' the concussion talkin'," Meilont said, giving him a dismissive wave.

Link slowly rose to a sitting position, his head swimming as he tried to make himself comfortable. He put a hand over his eyes and carefully slumped against the nearest arm of the couch. "Mom call yet?" he asked.

"Nope," Irleen replied as she rolled back toward the TV.

"Dad?"

"I called him," Irleen said. "He's gonna be working late at the docks tonight, so we have the house to ourselves."

"Did he ask about the…?" Link held up his hand to wave around the bracelet. "The incident?"

"No, I forgot to tell him. Mei-chan knows, though."

"Really?" Link asked in a flat tone. He looked at Meilont. "And you're not gushing about it or anything?"

"No, I'm really a li'l disappointed," she replied, her attention focused on the TV again. "You sen' her ta the hospi'al."

"Oooh, no," Link told her. "She was bleeding, and she left a _hole_ in the street. She needed a _doctor_."

"Told you," Irleen said.

"Yeh really take away the roman'icism, Linkun," Meilont said. She glanced at him as he stood up. "I don' think yeh shoul' be walkin' 'round."

"I'm fine," Link said as he rounded the couch. "Why should _you_ care anyway? You _caused_ this." However, the movement was a sudden drain on his vision, and he promptly collapsed to the floor. "Ow."

"She tried to warn you, Oniichan," Irleen said. She switched off the television and sat up to address Meilont. "So now what do we do?"

"Do we know who he's fightin'?" Meilont asked.

Irleen shrugged. "All we saw were those Stalarmors. It _could_ be Cunimincus again, but we just don't know. Zelda never said anything about it."

"How about Zelda? She a goddess again?"

"If she is, she's a _lot_ more vulnerable this time around."

"Hey," Link spoke up. "Can someone drag me to the toilet? I really gotta pee."

"Nope," Irleen said.

"No' int'rested," Meilont told him.

Link sighed and pushed himself up on his hands and knees. "Not like I was asking you to wipe my _ass_ or anything…" he grumbled to himself as he crawled out of the room.

He disappeared into the bathroom to relieve himself. Meanwhile, now that Link was out of earshot, Irleen began gushing about Link's new powers in as quiet a voice as possible. Meilont had questions regarding the subject, many of which required Irleen to remember their adventure from _Sky Lines_ to explain some of Link's gear. This lasted long after Link stepped out of the bathroom, and he hid around the outside of the doorway as he listened to Irleen explain the "Pegasus Boots" to Meilont. He let the back of his head rest against the wall, not believing that they had completely changed topics.

"It doesn't help that their characters are different, either," Link told the ceiling in a low voice.

["What, you don't think this is in-character?"]

"Irleen, sure," Link said. "But Meilont?"

["She asked you _plenty_ about your life when she first met you. Why should _this_ be any different? It's nothing she's experienced before."]

Link was about to dare a look at Meilont so that he could judge better whether she was in-character or not.

 _Bam bam bam!_ A knock at the door caused him to duck back into cover. Well, to call it a knock would be like calling tripping over an airship bulwark a "little fall". Link could see the front door visibly jerk with the next three blows: _Bam bam bam!_

"Oniichan, could you get that?" Irleen hollered from the living room.

Link stepped into the doorway and shouted, "You're right _there_!"

"You're closer!" Irleen argued.

 _Bam bam bam!_

"Okay, okay!" Link said, throwing his hands up in defeat. He stomped to the door (well, as best as he could in his stockinged feet) and pulled it opened.

The Stalarmor reared backward in surprise, clubbing its companion with a shoulder. Link recognized the chained design of this Stalarmor's build, and he saw that its bullet-riddled companion stood over one shoulder. But Link's mind did not switch gears too well; he knew who they were, but a moment of pure stupidity washed over him. Should he be welcoming or afraid?

Link made to close the door. But, before he let the latch engage, he pulled the door open again. He gave the Stalarmors a dull look while the Stalarmors tilted their heads in confusion. Once he had established that they were Stalarmors and had yet to address him (in any sort of continuity, really; it's hard to talk when you don't have a larynx), he shut the door in their faces as his lack of interest took over his rational thoughts.

Once he turned around, though, his brain finally shifted from "my sister and childhood friend annoy me" to "wait, what the hell did I just see". Alarms went off in his head once he realized that not only had the Stalarmors _found_ the Moriyuki house, but he had just slammed the door in their faces. He looked down at the floor as he tried to rationalize how they could find where he lived.

And there, smeared on the tiled floor of the entryway, was a spot of blood that must have come from Zelda.

"Oh, _crap_ …" he whispered to himself.

 _WHAM!_ The attack on the door caused Link to jump onto the wooden floor of the hallway. _WHAM!_ He hustled back toward the living room.

"Oniichan, what are you doing?" Irleen asked as she watched him enter, having moved into the kitchen to get a drink. She cast him a confused look as she stabbed a straw into her juice box. "Didn't you—"

"We gotta get out of here," Link interrupted.

"Huh?" Meilont asked, partway out of the chair.

"What are you—" Irleen began again.

 _WHAM!_

"ZeldaleftabloodtrailandtheStalarmorsfollowedit," Link blurted out as fast as possible. Irleen paled and dropped her juice box on the floor.

"Wha'?" Meilont asked as she stood up.

"Let's go," Link told them both. "Out the traditional room."

As Irleen led Meilont to the back of the house, Link moved to the table in front of the television and used the remote to turn the television on. He brought up the volume to deafening levels, and then he bolted from the room. _WHAM!_ Link dared a glance at the front door. There was a noticeable split in the middle of the door, so he turned down the hallway. He entered the traditional room at the back of the house to find that one screen into the yard had already been opened into the evening light, everything outside shrouded by orange. He joined Irleen and Meilont next to the yard's rear wall as Meilont was offering a lift to Irleen.

"C'mon," Meilont told Irleen, hands clasped together in anticipation.

"I don't think the neighbors are gonna like this," Irleen said.

"The neighbors' opinions aren't important to this story," Link said as he whacked Irleen on the back, causing her to yelp. "Move it."

"Okay, okay," Irleen answered. She braced herself on Meilont's shoulders and placed a foot in Meilont's hands. Meilont immediately began lifting her. "Wa-wa-wai—WAH!" Irleen had extended her leg to help her climb. However, with Meilont's forceful lift, she inadvertently sailed over the wall with an inelegant flip. _Whump._ "Ooooow…"

"Hmm," Meilont said, giving the wall a thoughtful look. "Sounds like she's gainin' a li'l weigh' lately."

Link gave her an irritated look. "You can tell just from the _thump_?"

"Have not," Irleen moaned from the other side.

Link shook his head and got into a similar position as Meilont. "C'mon, I'll give you a lift over."

Meilont crossed her arms. "Yeh aren' gonna look up ma skir' again, are yeh?" she asked.

"We've got a _problem_ here," Link told her in exasperation. "Seeing your underwear isn't gonna do anything for me right now. This isn't an animation; I don't have _time_ to be a pervert."

Meilont heard a sound from behind and looked at the house. Nothing seemed to be in sight, but she still told Link as she turned back to him, "Okay then." She planted a foot in Link's hands. But instead of allowing herself to be lifted, she leapt up just as Link started moving. He had to duck back away from her foot. She landed on top of the wall and turned around as she hunched low.

Link turned around to find her offering a hand out. "Le's go, Linkun," she told him.

"Can you lift me?" Link asked as they clasped forearms together.

"How diff'ren' could yeh two be?" she asked as she tugged. _Kr-krk._ Meilont put on a pained look as her pull waned, and she used her opposite hand to rub her shoulder. "Wha' have yeh two been _eatin'_ lately?"

"C'mon, hurry," Link told her.

"A'righ', hang on," she said. She took his wrist in both hands and positioned herself precariously on the wall. Then she lifted again and, at the same time, leaned backwards over the opposite side. Link braced a foot against the wall as he rose and hefted himself onto the wall. Once he had his feet on top, she pulled herself close to him, and they bumped together. "Whoa…"

Link quickly grabbed her arms to hold her up. "I got you," he told her.

"Looks cute," Irleen said from the other yard. Link and Meilont glanced down to see that she was brushing what remained of the neighbors' sand garden off her rear end. "Get down here."

"Ligh', can we ge' a scene change so people don' have ta see me fall?" Meilont asked.

["Are you kidding? This'll be _gold_!"]

"Sounds good to me," Link said.

"DON' YE—"

Link released her.

"YA—" Just as she started to fall backwards, she grabbed the front of Link's shirt. The move surprised him, and he was too late to stop himself from going over as well.

 _Whum. Ka-whump!_ Meilont managed to land light on her bottom, but Link hit the sand garden face-first next to her. The rest of his body fell a breath later to knock the wind out of him.

Irleen gave them an exhausted sigh before covering her face. "Light," she said. "Transition, please."

…

The three teenagers barged into the Kimuras' convenience store a almost half an hour later, all three of them wearing clothes dirty in some way or another. Seilon Kimura, just barely starting to ring up a customer, started and glanced over to see them standing in the doorway breathing heavily. The customer, a Gelto girl who looked old enough to be one of their upperclassmen, had jumped at the same sound and turned wide eyes on them.

Seilon Kimura sported a slender figure and a face that looked amazingly like Meilont's. It did not help that they shared their brilliant red hair and soft dark eyes; sometimes the only way to tell them apart was the difference in their height. "Meilont!" she cried out. Her customer was left red-faced at the counter so that she could rush around to give Meilont a worried hug. "Wha' 'appened?!"

"Someone attacked Linkun's house," Meilont answered as her mother pulled away. "We ran ou' the back."

"Linkun? Irleen-chan?" Seilon asked as if just realizing that they were standing nearby. Her eyes widened, and she put her hands over her mouth in worry. "Oh, dear, yeh two." She hollered over her shoulder, "Talein! Talein, call the police!"

Something heavy slammed in the store's back room. Talein had not come into view, but he shouted back, "We bein' robbed!?"

"No!" Seilon replied, her voice taking an annoyed edge. "It's the Moriyuki kids! Someone's broken inna their 'ome!"

Cursing sounded amidst a tumult of falling objects in the back of the store. "Where's the address book?!" Talein hollered. "The cops'll need an address!"

Seilon beckoned to Irleen. "C'mon, Irleen-chan, yeh can give Talein yer address," she said as she hooked an arm behind Irleen's shoulders and guided her past the counter.

Meilont let out a sigh and turned to Link. "Well, _tha's_ happenin'," she commented.

"Yeah, but Light's gonna have to try harder than _this_ to get me to fight back," Link replied.

"Do yeh ever think Ligh' _migh'_?" Meilont asked as she stepped toward the hot food rack on the sales counter.

Link shook his head. "We're far enough from the house that those Stalarmors'd have to stumble in here just to find us."

Meilont turned to give him a flat look. It quickly turned into fright when she looked over his shoulder. "Link?" Link turned to look outside.

The chain-wearing Stalarmor stood under a light across the street, battleaxe at the ready. Next to it was a short, red Dinolfos. It had a collar and leash which the Stalarmor held, and it pointed right at the store, licking its lips in anticipation.

Link took one stunned moment to put together what he had just seen. "It sniffed us out with a _Dinolfos_?!" he snapped. "Are you _kidding_ me?!"

The Stalarmor raised the axe to throw it. Link quickly jumped toward Meilont and grabbed her shoulders. _KRRRSSSSSSH!_ The axe shattered the glass automatic doors just a half-second after Link had wrestled Meilont into a nearby aisle. The axe embedded itself into a small area of bare wall, and the trailing safety glass showered their legs.

"Link!" Talein hollered from the doorway, phone still in hand. "Meilont!"

"Daddy, they're here!" Meilont cried out. She sat up and looked at Link to find him writhing in pain. "Link, are yeh all righ'?!"

"No," Link growled through his teeth as he sat up, hand on his left shoulder. "I hurt my arm on the floor."

"Yeh two! Ge' back here!" Talein told them. Then he looked out the front door just as the Dinolfos ran across the street. "Seilon, take this," he said, thrusting the phone toward her while she rifled through the office. Once she took it, Talein jumped out the door and ducked behind the counter.

Link and Meilont had risen back to their feet by the time the Dinolfos reached the door. It spotted them and jumped onto the end of the shelves to their right. It licked its lips and told them, "Haihlinqa…"

"Let's go, big guy," Link said. He raised his hand and pressed on the triangular emerald embedded in its surface.

But all he could do was press on it. The emerald was not a button.

Link's attitude quickly changed to concern. "Light?" Link said as he and Meilont backed away from the Dinolfos, him still pressing one finger on the emerald. "What isn't this thing _working_?!"

 _Ch-chak!_ "Move!" Talein shouted. Link took one look at him, and then he shoved Meilont toward the back corner. The Dinolfos, however, had heard a new noise and turned its head to find the source.

 _BOOM!_ The Dinolfos did not even realize that Talein was holding a shotgun until Talein pulled the trigger. With a wild yell, it stumbled off the shelves and hit the magazine rack at the front of the store. It landed on the floor with a loud _thump_ and ceased to move.

"Nice sho', Daddy," Meilont called to him.

"Yeah, well," Talein replied as he hurriedly pulled the spent shells from the shotgun's breach, "here comes the _other_ one." Then he hissed in pain after burning his fingers on the hot brass.

"Get back there," Link told him as he strode toward the front. "Guns aren't gonna do anything to it." Then he snapped at the ceiling, "Light! Why won't this—" He started jamming his thumb on the emerald in his bracelet. "—this stupid thing _work_?"

["Don't know; I misplaced the instruction manual."]

Link looked up from the bracelet to see the Stalarmor halfway across the two-lane street. "Liiiight…" he droned.

["Maybe the batteries are dead."]

"LIGHT!" Link screamed, watching the Stalarmor grab the mangled doors in front of him.

["It's voice-activated. She forgot to give you the activation phrase."]

"Are you _allergic_ to consistency or something!?" Link snapped as he backed toward the axe embedded in the wall.

He watched a dark cloth fall over the Stalarmor's head just as it was stepping into the store. Then, almost in an instant, the Stalarmor's skull was ripped from its body. The Stalarmor used its hands to feel around for its head before turning around. It stumbled back outside, and Link carefully moved toward the door to see what was happening while Meilont rushed to the front window from the opposite side of the store.

Someone was perched on the wall across the street. The nearby streetlight only revealed a vaguely feminine silhouette holding the Stalarmor's head in a length of cloth like a sling, her only visible characteristic being a long ribbon of red hair tied into a ponytail. The Stalarmor's body stumbled across the street in attempt to reach her. The figure responded by swinging the head in a circle on one side. The Stalarmor's body took a different pace as it leaned to one side like it was drunk.

" _BWARRR! BWARRRRRRRR!_ " A new source of light cast the chain-clad Stalarmor in yellow light from one side. Then— _WHAM!_ —the Stalarmor's body disappeared in an instant as a box truck drove by. Pieces of the Stalarmor and its broken chainmail flew in all directions. The air was then permeated by the sound of brakes screeching as the driver tried much too late to stop.

Link looked around at the mess of metal all over the road. Then his eyes rose to find that the figure had disappeared. He sensed someone behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see Talein looking outside with a shocked expression. "Police?" Link simply asked.

"On their way," Talein replied.

Link stepped outside and picked up a rib sitting near the sidewalk. "It's not reassembling," he said as he pondered the rib. "That truck must've taken out its life jewel."

"Lucky shot," Talein commented as he moved aside for Meilont.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Link turned in the direction of the voice, although he already knew who had spoken. Still, his jaw dropped open at the sight of Zelda approaching from the direction of the stopped truck. Instead of a t-shirt and skirt, like she had been wearing earlier in the night, she wore a dirty tank top and a pair of shorts with a bright blue floral print. Her hair was tied into a ponytail high on the back of her head to accommodate the headband she wore. She stopped next to the sidewalk and crossed her arms, beaming at Link's reaction. "Sometimes, you have to _make_ some luck," she told them.

"Oh, this is _bullshit_!" Link shouted at the night sky while pointing at her. "Plausibility just went _out_ the window and jumped into a—"

["Language, Link!"]

"—ing _train wreck_! I don't _care_ about my language! Are you-are you _kidding_ me with all this crap!? You expect me to believe Zelda escaped from an ambulance and stole a truck just to run over a Stalarmor nowhere _near_ where we found her!?"

"Not particularly, no," Zelda answered.

"Doesn' seem very consistent," Meilont admitted.

"This is where alternate universes go wrong," Irleen said as she stepped out behind Meilont.

"I jus' run a convenience store," Talein said with a shrug.

"I thought that you might like your activation phrase," Zelda told Link. "I did not realize you had not picked it out of my words before I sent you back." Her smile turned smug as she added, "At least you are willing to _use_ it if you are ever in peril."

"Yeah, well, you can count on that when _Light_ writes your story," Link replied, jerking a thumb toward the store. "Apparently, Dinolfos have an acute sense of smell when you use them as _bloodhounds_."

Zelda shook her head. "I do not make these things up, Link."

["That's my job."]

"We know," Link, Zelda, Irleen, and Meilont all said simultaneously, Zelda the only one not speaking with an air of annoyance.

"Okay, fine," Link said. "What's the activation phrase?"

"'Courageous Heart'," Zelda replied. "Which is also the name of your powers."

"Coura—that's the same name from the _first_ fanfic!" Link snapped.

"Can we still call him 'Master Emerald'?" Irleen asked.

Zelda gave a shrug. "As long as no one makes any lame _Sonic_ jokes in the comments."

"Sooo… now wha' happens?" Meilont asked. "Ma parents' store is wrecked. An' the police are comin'."

Zelda reached into a pocket and pulled out a tin full of mints. "As with all other things, there are solutions once we have had time to think about them." She offered the tin toward the group. "Mint?"

"Ooh," Talein uttered, reaching toward the tin.

"Wait a minute," Link said as he grabbed Talein's wrist to stop him. "What's the gag?"

"No gag," Zelda said with a concerned frown. "It's just a mint."

"Ap—" Link grunted as Talein shoved him aside and reached his opposite hand into the tin. "This is coming from the same person who used a _string_ to remote-control me all the way home." He turned with the rest of the group as Talein tossed a mint into his mouth. "Well?"

"Mmm…" Talein moaned as he sucked on the mint. "Not bad. What flavor?"

Zelda snapped the tin shut. "My favorite concoction of peppermint and general anesthetics."

"Oh, really?" Talein asked in mild amazement. Then he caught the shocked look on his daughter's face. "Oh," he uttered with immediate realization on his face. It was far too late for him to spit the mint out. Instead, he nervously swallowed it. "Son of a buuuuuuh…" His droning preceded falling over sideways, halfway into the road.

"Zelda!" Meilont snapped. "Wha've yeh _done_?"

Zelda, however, had only replaced the mints and pulled out a harmonica. It looked like a simple, blue-clad harmonica with a white feather taped over the front. Link listened along as she played six notes, with the second and fifth notes played shorter than the others: a blow, higher draw, and lower draw below the blow note, all three notes played twice. He was able to follow the notes due to his own experience playing a blues harp for music class, although he did not recognize the tune.

Then the world started spinning around him. He barely caught Zelda's taunting words before he lost consciousness.

"Time to wake up, Link."

…

Link immediately jerked back into consciousness and flailed for a moment. He thought he had beaten Zelda's lullaby for a moment. Then he realized that the ringing in his ears was coming from his alarm clock. He was back home, in his bedroom just as light from the rising sun was entering his window. Mangling a curse under his breath, he swatted the alarm clock off his nightstand. The clock hit the floor with a complaining ring before falling silent.

Link rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Although it was taking him some time to piece together the events of last night, he was nonetheless alert to his present surroundings. There was little doubt that this was his room. How he had arrived here was not much of a mystery; Zelda had used magic just like the first story. He felt rested, although he was aware that he had gone to sleep without even the faintest traces of having dreamed.

He sat up on the edge of the bed and pondered the curtain-covered window across the room from him. Then he stood up and stepped out into the hallway.

"Oniichan." Link turned just as Irleen shut the door to her bedroom, her feathered head in wild disarray. She yawned before asking, "What happened? How'd we get home?"

"Zelda's a goddess," Link said. "She did the same thing in the other story, only she was _obnoxious_ about it. If I'm right about this, she probably fixed everything that got wrecked last night."

"Wow, that's… annoyingly convenient," Irleen said in a flat voice. Then she indicated the bathroom. "I go first."

The twins changed and walked downstairs to find the entryway untouched, as if a six-foot armored skeleton had not walked all over their door last night. Link even looked outside to find that the concrete step Meilont had destroyed using his jaw was back in one piece. Neither of their parents woke up, so they each had a bowl of dry cereal and the last of the prune juice. Even afterwards, they were still too early to go to school, so they agreed to go to the Kimuras' convenience store to see how it had fared.

They found the convenience store looking the same as usual. The front door was intact, the back wall had not been touched, and the interior smelled of freshly-grilled food despite having a four-foot-tall lizard shot to death inside last night.

"Good mornin', yeh two," Seilon greeted them as they stepped inside. Her smile was brief as she gave a waiting customer his change. Then she moved closer to the twins and said in a low voice, "Yeh mind if I ask yeh a question?"

Link shrugged. "It's fine."

"Did… yeh two come ou' 'ere las' nigh'?"

Link and Irleen traded looks. "Yeah," Irleen replied.

"And… did we… call the police or somethin'?"

"Mommy." Meilont emerged from the back room, already dressed in her uniform, and stepped over to put a hand on Seilon's shoulder. "Don' worry 'bou' it. It was jus' a dream, tha's all."

"Are yeh sure, Meilont?" Seilon asked as Meilont stepped around her. "Yeh sounded so _serious_."

Meilont gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek before retrieving her book bag and shinai from under the counter against the window. "Jus' a bad dream," she said as she stepped out from behind the counter. "Love yeh, Mommy. I'll be back." Then she twitched her neck to indicate to Link and Irleen to follow her outside.

"Be careful, yeh three," Seilon called to them as they left.

They followed Meilont down the street, aware that she was following their usual route to school. All Irleen and Link could do was exchange looks, wondering in silence if they should be asking Meilont a question.

Then, once they were a few blocks away and out of sight of the store, Meilont wheeled on them and brandished the covered shinai with the end almost touching Link's nose. "A'righ'," she told them with a business-like tone. "I wanna know _wha'_ happened las' nigh'."

"You mean other than Cunimincus' goons attacking your parents' store?" Irleen replied.

Meilont paled and allowed the shinai to drop a bit. "So it _wasn'_ a dream…" Then she slung the shinai back over her shoulder. "Bu' how come _I_ remember bu' ma parents _don'_?"

"I think Zelda used magic to erase memories when she was fixing things after a fight," Link replied. Then he shrugged. "I don't know why _you_ remember, though; you didn't even _know_ about all this in the other story."

"Is this how it's always gonna be?" Meilont asked.

Link shrugged. "Depends on if Light can keep the story interesting."

["Hey!"]

"Maybe we'll get lucky, and the next fight will just be Zelda hitting Cunimincus' goons with a bunch of cars," Irleen suggested with a grin.

["Well, there goes chapter three! Thanks, Irleen!"]

"I think you just helped us dodge a bullet," Link muttered to Irleen.

Irleen groaned. "Yeah… I kinda wish I hadn't said it now…"

…

They were still early when they reached school, so they settled down in class so that Link and Irleen could catch Meilont up to speed with the events of the previous story that she did not know about. Including the fact that Irleen had been turned into a fairy, which caused Meilont to laugh for a while.

Students started trickling in not too long after, and the first bell sounded to alert the stragglers that class was about to start. This included Line, who bounded into the room barely a minute ahead of the second bell. His arrival was announced by him tripping across the threshold at the back of the room. Half of the class turned in response to the squeal his face made against the linoleum; those that did not look, including Link, Irleen, and Meilont, had already known what the sound was. Line performed a crawl across the floor to his desk.

However, Leynne's unusual delay in arrival left the class confused. The class representative, seated in front of Meilont, was halfway out of her chair in anticipation of his arrival. The entire class knew that she cued her directions off the sound of his fancy shoes clicking down the hallway (how she could distinguish them from the rest of the teachers, no one really figured out), so it was a surprise to see that she was hesitating.

"Stand!" The class representative's call caught the class by surprise, and some of the students bumped their legs in a rush to get to their feet. However, true to habit, Leynne stepped inside a breath later. "Bow!" The class bowed and sat down again.

Leynne opened the class register and took attendance in his head. He started talking just as he slapped it shut. "Good mohning," he told the class. "I apologize foh my tahdiness, but we had a transfeh student in the faculty office lateh than expected. To ouh fohtune, she will be joining _this_ class foh heh education." He held out a hand to the open classroom door.

 _Thunk!_ While Line suddenly sat upright with a pained grin on his face again, Link and Meilont groaned and covered their eyes as the new student walked in. She wore her regulation blouse with a blue neckerchief draped under the sailor collar and clasped over its knot with a gold, down-pointing triangle. Her skirt was shorter than the school normally allowed, and she appeared to be compensating for it by wearing black, thigh-high stockings so that a thin band of fair skin was visible. Her long, blond hair was tied back so that only a few strands framed her face. She bore no marks or scars to indicate that she had been in a fight last night, much less tore a large gash in the road after being thrown into it.

"My name is Zelda Chiehime," she addressed the class with a smile. "I am pleased to meet you all. I hope we'll get along."

Leynne glances out at you and says, "If any of you saw this coming, raise a hand. In the meantime, Light? A chapteh break, if you will."


End file.
